Most mothers were able to stay home with their children instead of having to dump them in daycare so they could work. People let their kids play in the woods or fields or run around the neighborhood all day without worrying about whether the children would be abducted, raped, and murdered. People bought a big new American car every year or every other year. Families gathered in the evening to watch TV together, and there was so little reference to sex on TV that married TV characters had to be shown sleeping in separate beds. America was still quite segregated and blacks and whites seldom mixed socially as equals--few blacks lived in the suburbs back then, and there were fewer black professionals.
As the country became more deeply mired in Vietnam, and later as Watergate unfolded, liberalism became the triumphant philosophy, but for long years middle America tried to pretend that this was a passing trend; we denied to ourselves that when liberalism had scored certain victories, it would soon take over the popular culture too. In the late sixties and early seventies it became socially unacceptable to speak openly about a conservative political or religious belief.
The only time we locked the door to the house was when we went away on vacation.
"In the late sixties and early seventies it became socially unacceptable to speak openly about a conservative political or religious belief."
Why was Nixon re-elected by a landslide, then?